


Five Things Jack Loved and Lost

by chocolatekettle



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, five things, oh Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocolatekettle/pseuds/chocolatekettle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The original 23 AF was what came before AFSOC, established 1983 and redesignated AFSOC 1990.</p></blockquote>





	Five Things Jack Loved and Lost

1.  
Jack fell in love with flying at an airshow when he was thirteen, and kept loving it all the way through high school, the Academy, the first mission he flew, the first _botched_ mission he flew, all the near-misses and almost-disasters.

He was a pretty good pilot. Not the best, but good enough, and he loved to fly. Then he ran into anti-aircraft just over the border of Iraq, his chute didn't open and the ground broke his fall. And three ribs. And his left arm. And his skull. It took him nine days to get to people who could help. It felt like years, but dehydration and pain and concussion can do that. He should have been dead, and neither he nor the medics could quite work out why he wasn't. He was back on active duty within the year, but he'd been re-assed to the Twenty-third. Apparently being too stubborn to stop moving was a good quality to have in that line of work and, Jack discovered, he had lots of other qualities too. The Air Force had more use for a very, very good spec ops guy than for an okay pilot, and it was the end of his flying career.

2.  
He lost Charlie through his own stupidity. Lost Sara the same way.

These days, he tries not to think about that.

3.  
Daniel, when he ascended. It wasn't the first time and, as it turns out, it's not the last either. But Jack thinks it might have been the worst.

When he loses Daniel again after that, Jack tries to think of him as being merely misplaced. He'll turn up eventually. Probably when Jack is looking for something else.

4.  
He lost SG-1 because he was old and tired and afraid that the next pre-mission fitness test would be the one he wouldn't pass. He thought later that he'd been caught at a weak moment, still disoriented and freaked out by having his brain taken over by an ancient civilization, saving the world (again), being frozen for several months, then returned to his normal IQ and thawed out in time to fight the creepy Replicator bugs. Taking advantage of that momentary lapse and offering him a promotion he never thought he'd get was just _sneaky_.

He's not old.

The Stargate he gives up, for, oh, so many reasons. Because being offered another unlikely promotion so soon after the first is flattering. Because he really can do more for the program from Washington. Because George Hammond tells him it's a good idea. Because if he has to fly a desk, it might as well be a shiny one in a big office with a window and a nice view.

Because maybe if he doesn't have to see it every day he won't miss it so much.

5.  
Jack loses Minnesota when a Goa'uld fleet descends through the atmosphere and begins to systematically destroy anywhere that is capable of offering significant resistance. He loses the whole Earth at the same time, but that is a failure too huge to think about, a loss too disastrous to contemplate or comprehend.

He and Teal'c leave, reluctantly, when it is clear there is no hope; leave mostly because Carter, having waited well past the last minute, rings them up bloody and protesting into an al'kesh that already holds Daniel, Mitchell, Dixon, the few other defenders of the SGC who remain, and then stands the ship on its end and flees for the stars.

Jack leans his forehead against the viewport and watches the planet shrink behind them. Teal'c comes to stand beside him, still angry and vengeful where Jack is only tired, now.

"We will return, O'Neill. We will fight for the freedom of your people as once we fought for mine."

Jack closes his eyes, and thinks of home.

**Author's Note:**

> The original 23 AF was what came before AFSOC, established 1983 and redesignated AFSOC 1990.


End file.
